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Friday, November 14, 2014

The Head Start Survival Guide: Practical Tips for Making It in a Republican-Controlled Congress

Last week the
US Senate was flipped from Democratic to Republican control.This means that in January 2015 Head Start
will be facing a more difficult environment in Congress than we have
experienced the past few years. Here are some things you need to know to
prepare for the new Congress and what it will take for us to survive:

Seek Bipartisan Support For Early
Learning.

In many states,
including Washington, Republican leaders have partnered with Democrats to make
new investments in high quality early education. Several “red states” like
Oklahoma, Georgia, and North Carolina have made major commitments to early
learning. This has not been true in DC since Obama was elected in 2008. There
is always an occasional outlier that steps forward but these are usually very
moderate Republican members and they tend to not be on key committees or in
leadership positions.Just to put things
in perspective, however, there are 435 members of Congress and 100 US Senators
but there were only 3 House Republicans listed as Co-Sponsors on the Strong
Start for America Act and there were no Republican Senators. Given this
environment, it will take strong advocacy and outreach from the Head Start community
to develop the kind of powerful conservative champions for Early Learning that
we have in state governments.

Reach Out To New Committee Chairs In The
Senate.

The House Education and Workforce Committee
will continue to be led by Rep. John Kline
(R-MN) and the House Appropriations Committee will continue to be led by Rep. Harold Rodgers (R-KY). Both of
these guys have shown some support towards Head Start, with Rep. Rodgers
seemingly in our corner when it comes to funding. But the Senate will now be a
much different environment. Already we know the likely chairs of four of the most
important Committees that impact Head Start directly:

Senator Lamar
Alexander (R-TN) will chair the HELP
Committee. Typically,
he has been seen as a pragmatist and has shown some support for Head Start.
During the last Head Start reauthorization in 2007 he authored the Centers of
Excellence. This year he has called for
Congress to fund the Centers of Excellence initiative. This seems like
something we can get behind and should advocate for. Recently, however, he has
not been particularly friendly toward the program and has proposed block granting
Head Start to state governments.

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
will take the reins of the Senate Budget Committee previously held by Senator
Patty Murray (D-WA). Senator Sessions has frequently criticized
Head Start and says he plans to introduce a budget blueprint that will lower
the amount of funding available to programs that serve low income children and
families.He has been a supporter of
sequester and publicly opposed the two year budget peace agreement between Rep.
Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senator Murray (D-WA). Remember, next fall the
sequestration kicks in again for fiscal year 2016. This is a huge problem and
it is made considerably worse if the new Senate budget committee chair thinks
it is a good thing.

Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS)
will take over the full Appropriations Committee. He has been somewhat sympathetic to Head
Start in the past and relied on Democratic support to get elected. Our hope is
that he will be an advocate for Head Start.

Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS) will
likely take over the Senate Labor HHS appropriations subcommittee. This has not been confirmed but this is
tough loss as he will replace one of Head Start’s greatest champions, Senator
Tom Harkin (D-IA). So far Senator Moran has been supportive of finding common
ground. For example, he voted for the omnibus bill that ended the government
shutdown.

Prepare Our Own Forward-Thinking
Proposal.

It isn’t
likely that we will see any Head Start Reauthorization bills moving out of the
policy committees over the next two years. For one thing, Senator Alexander
seems interested in focusing on reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act and the Higher

Education Act before getting to Head Start. Rep.
Kline also seems to have priorities other than early learning. I think there is
a sense that members of Congress want to see how the Designation Renewal System
(DRS) plays out and what the new program performance standards will look like
before launching into a new Head Start reauthorization. I wouldn’t be
completely surprised, however, if some conversations start taking place about
the future of Head Start.It will be
incumbent on all of us to put forward a proactive and positive agenda. As you probably
know, NHSA is in the process of gathering
input from the field and talking with folks inside and outside the beltway
about charting a course for Head Start. We
need to continue to support this work.

Turn the Page on Old Battles, Heated
Discussions and Fears.

Still not happy with the DRS process? Concerned about how the Early Head
Start-Child Care Partnerships might work? Worried about the Obama
Administration’s pre-k agenda? All of that needs to be a thing of the past. Yes,
we absolutely have to speak up when we have real issues with the Obama
Administration or our champions on the Hill. Holding the Obama Administration accountable
is important, but we also need to recognize that the situation is different
now. Come January 2015 we are not having a discussion about how the Early Head
Start-Child Care partnership might work, but if there will actually be any
money at all for Early Head Start or child care.We are not discussing whether pre-k grants
may displace Head Start but whether there will any new funding for early
learning at all. We may face the real possibility of budget cuts and the loss
of services to children and families. We need to put aside the battles of the
past few years and heated discussions with our most enduring champions because
we simply cannot afford to have them anymore.

Find Common Ground With Our Critics.

We
are not going to survive simply by changing our messaging and communications. In

other words, we can’t simply go into Republican offices and talk about the
return on investment and hope to make it out of this situation alive. We really
need to think about ways we can meet our critics in the middle where we can and
where it might improve the experience for the children and families we serve. Some
examples may include the following:

We should work with the Office of Head
Start to streamline the standards and look for efficiencies where we can find
them. You and I know
there are too many standards and that the amount of paperwork is getting in the
way of the actual work of providing high quality early learning to our most at-risk
children. It’s ok to admit this and still support the wide array of services we
provide to children and families. In fact, one could argue that trimming the
standards will actually help us do our job better.

We need to get behind real reforms that
will strengthen the quality of teaching and experiences for our most at-risk
children and make sure they are long-lasting. We should be open to learning from the latest research
being conducted on top-flight pre-k programs around the country. Some of them
are getting better results when it comes to child outcomes. Head Start should
be open to making some changes based on the research while still delivering the
health, nutrition, and family partnership work that we know our families need
to succeed. Some possible things for us to look at could be everything from
looking at more full-day options and hours for children, increasing the pay and
qualifications for our teachers and classroom staff, and learning from the
research on how to maximize teacher-child interactions.

We need to embrace child and family
outcomes.Taxpayers need to know that if they trust us
with their dollars we are producing clear, measurable results. Just meeting the
performance standards is not enough. We heard recently from a well placed Hill staffer
that if the Head Start community doesn’t come up with clear outcomes, Congress
will do it for us. Supporting child and
family outcomes should be fairly easy as programs are already doing a lot of
this, if not necessarily being held to it by the Office of Head Start.Now we need to do the hard work to figure out
how to actually make this work.

We need to find a reasonable role for
state partnership and collaboration.
I have been pretty clear that block granting Head Start is a bad idea. Block
grants lead to lower funding and less local control and responsiveness. Don’t
believe me?See TANF or the Child Care
Development Block Grant. I am also skeptical about how states will do managing
Head Start when they already have so much trouble trying to make the child care
subsidy system work effectively. Having said all that, we should look for
creative approaches which could include expanding the role of the State Head
Start Collaboration Office, data sharing, shared professional development, and
alignment of monitoring, Training & Technical Assistance, and quality
rating systems.

It’s Show Time: Get Your Tap Shoes On

Over the next
two years we might be in for a bumpy and challenging ride. It’s conceivable that
a Republican-controlled Congress will mean opportunities for the kind of strong
bipartisan support for early learning in DC that we have seen across the
country in state houses. Head Start used to enjoy this kind of bipartisan
support as well. It was President George Bush Sr. that really got behind Head
Start with some real dollars. It may
even lead to some interesting policy proposals and thinking and challenge us in
good ways. But we also need to face the reality we are in. We are likely facing
a time where funding for Head Start will be harder to come by. It may mean that
we will battle cuts to the program and the real possibility of services to
children and families being rolled back as we saw recently a result of the
sequestration. As a member of the Head Start community you will likely be called
upon more frequently to share your story with your member of Congress and to be
a vocal and persistent advocate for the program. We have been here before and
survived, and we will survive again if we stick together and continue to be
champions for our most at-risk children and families.